


Luctus

by settledownfrohike



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Episode: s07e10 Sein Und Zeit, F/M, Missing Scene, X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/settledownfrohike/pseuds/settledownfrohike
Summary: “It’s been a hard night for him.”spoiler alert: this isn't a drabble





	Luctus

He pulls away before she’s ready, the emptiness of her arms being the first thing she notices. She should be ashamed. It’s abhorrent to think she was enjoying this just now, cradling this broken man in her arms. But the way she caught the hem of his t-shirt as he stalked away tells another story.

On her knees, frozen to the spot, she watches him pace the living room once, twice, smearing the tears and mucus from his face angrily with his palm, and then flop on to the couch. Mulder has never before been uncomfortable with his own emotions, and this unsettles her. He keeps scanning the room, as if it seems unfamiliar.

“Mulder?”

He’s behaving like some caged creature, making the room feel all the more claustrophobic.

Look at me. She pleads inwardly. Tell me to go. Ask me to stay. Tell me you need me. Tell me you don’t. Tell me what to do to make this better.

He shakes his head, staring at the opposite wall. “She wouldn’t do this Scully. She wouldn’t.”

And this time she knows, he doesn’t really believe his own words.

She walks over to the couch and sits a cushion away. Mulder’s ease with close proximity is one of his more infuriating characteristics, but the ‘keep away’ vibes are rolling off of him in waves right now, even with him having collapsed into her arms only moments ago.

“I know what you thought of her.”

“Mulder I –“

“Don’t lie to me.” The flatness of his voice causes her adrenaline to spike, a wave of tiny electric shocks washing over her entire body. She feels suddenly very much like a hostage, and her heart begins to thud.

His voice sounds far away, “She was a good mother to us….before–” he nods as he speaks, reassuring himself.

“She used to play piano. She would sing to us…she had a good voice. Samantha liked _Over the Rainbow_. I hated it. I liked Billie Holiday. She sang that more.... ”

Scully clasps her hands together, wanting to look as much like she is listening as possible, but more so to hide the fact that her hands are trembling. His eyes are glassy, wild and distant. She doesn’t know where this is going.

“I was her favorite you know.” She looks up and he’s staring straight into her. The uneasiness won’t let up. This brazenness is so unlike him. He’s nodding again. “I was,” his gaze focuses back to the wall now, “That’s why she chose her. It had to be,” and just as suddenly his head drops between his knees and his shoulders begin to shake in silent sobs. “It had to be, Scully. Why would she do that?” he croaks.

God. He’s killing her. She slides carefully closer and places her hand between his shoulder blades, and he reacts as though burned, jumping from his seat to being his pacing again.

“Goddamnit….I was supposed to fix this. I was the one. She knew it!!“

"Mulder–” and she has no idea what’s supposed to follow that. No matter, he interrupts her–

“I failed her. She couldn’t wait any more.” He clasps his hands behind his head and stairs at the ceiling. And he looks more exhausted than she’s ever seen anyone look in her entire life.

She mentally chides herself for letting this go on as long as it has. He is an unstable nucleus, his binding energy unable to hold him together any longer. She defaults to her old stand by of dispelling emotion with logic. Give and take away. Find stasis.

“Mulder, your mother was sick. She was in pain..,”

He chuffs.

“Listen to me, that kind of pain Mulder, whatever medications….she wasn’t herself.”

“Even if that were true…..how would I know? How could I know?… I didn’t know because I let her push me away… She was traumatized and I knew that. I should have helped her!” He roars, thudding at his own chest. “I knew better!!” He’s hissing now, sneering at her. “Don’t cut me any slack Scully—I knew. It was my fucking job.” And she isn’t sure if he means as a professional or as a son.

“Mulder. You were _both_ traumatized. You cannot blame yourself. Mulder please. Come sit down. You’re overwrought. You need to rest.”

He resumes his pacing, manically flitting his hand back and through his hair.

“Mulder please.” And she’s well aware of her plaintive tone. She knows his weakness when it comes to her, and she’s going to use it to her advantage.

It works.

He flops next to her and she draws his hulking form into her lap. It feels practiced now, reminiscent of a cool and humid forest floor, polyester jackets and a tree root digging into her ass. She didn’t move then, and she won’t now. Then she was afraid she’d injure him, now she’s afraid of startling him out of his complacency. His shoulders begin to shake once more and she begins to stroke his back again— until she realizes he’s laughing.

“What I wouldn’t give for a sleeping bag.” And she realizes he remembers too.

Feeling flushed and embarrassed, indignant anger rises up into her chest and into her mouth in the form of a biting retort. She waits, says a silent prayer for grace.

“You gonna sing to me now?” He’s calmer, his previous furor having smoldered into bitter acrimony.

“No”, and she hopes her tone isn’t as irritated as she feels. Minutes pass.

“Well?” He’s pushing. Trifling with her in search of control and diversion. She knows this, but she’s beginning to feel used. Her aortic pulse is throbbing, self-consciousness having taken the place of irritation, and she’s sure he must feel it thudding behind her navel.

Deciding to call his bluff, she begins to hum flatly, absentmindedly enough so that it doesn’t sound too purposeful leaving the lyrics to her memory, Paul and his piano.

_When I find myself in times of trouble_   
_Mother Mary comes to me_   
_Speaking words of wisdom_   
_Let it be_   
_And in my hour of darkness_   
_She is standing right in front of me_   
_Speaking words of wisdom_   
_Let it be_   
_Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be_   
_Whisper words of wisdom_   
_Let it be_   
_And when the broken-hearted people_   
_Living in the world agree_   
_There will be an answer_   
_Let it be_   
_For though they may be parted there is_   
_Still a chance that they will see_   
_There will be an answer_   
_Let it be_

 

Deep in the reverie of her teenage self immersed in the throws of paternal angst, black vinyl and her own sentimentality, she becomes aware of the somniferous cadence of Mulder’s breathing and realizes she has been subconsciously stroking his head. His too-short haircut is like feathers under her fingers, and his scalp febrile and humid. Also her legs are going numb, and she has to pee. Badly.

Mulder is a known light sleeper so she’s weighing her options. Dignity wins out, so she slides out from underneath him in increments, the pressure his head puts on her bladder waxes and wanes as she shifts free.

Her thoughts take a darker turn as she studies herself in the mirror. She’d let him fuck her tonight if he needed it. She would. She imagines herself, belly down into a mattress she’s never slept on, guiding the rubbery tip of him into her depths, readiness replaced by saliva, letting him pump his frustration into her furiously and without regard. She’d be far from orgasm, but would still be intoxicated with arousal from the scent of his sex on her fingertips. He’d stumble on post-orgasmic legs to fetch her a towel, ever the gentleman, and wipe her clean. And she’d be grateful for the leftover scent and wetness of his climax in the sheets, she’d inhale him and absorb him, starving for this kind of primordial connection and willing his essence into her mouth and her bones. Once upon a time, it seemed a foregone conclusion.

Scully tiptoes her way into the dusky living area, half expecting him to already be awake, hazel eyes rendered beady with accusation as if she’d read her fantasy aloud. She decides not to analyze why her fear of him still lingers.

He doesn’t stir.

She reaches to turn off the desk lamp when a leather bound album upon his desk catches her eye and peaks her curiosity. Investigation is a welcomed distraction. She flips through the stiff, plastic pages, momentarily caught up in the nostalgia of browsing through Maggie’s much-of-the-same, when she happens upon a grainy, faded image of a heavily pregnant and distracted woman. Teena Mulder. A small boy of about 3 or 4 with familiar hazel eyes is peering into the camera sedately; a thick mop of dark hair is tousled by an invisible breeze. He was so serious, even then, and she can’t help but smile in affection before she can help herself. Before she can remember the situation.

She looks over at his sleeping form, studies the exaggerated bow of his upper lip, and thinks what a nursing blister it must’ve made. She gazes back down at the somber toddler in the faded image clutching his mother’s leg and sucking his thumb, her with one hand on his scalp, the other cradling her belly. His humanity is real and disconcerting at this moment. All this time, it felt as though she were merely patching up this omnipotent, otherworldly force, acting as an aid to propel him toward an epic destiny. There’s proof before her now that somewhere, he had a beginning. He too was an infant once, pot-bellied and toothless. Dependent on mother’s milk and a father’s sturdy hand. She grieves for that child. He is truly flesh and bone, flailing as fragile as the rest of us. Something inside of her evaporates, reality dashing away the remnants of a preposterous theory she’d dismissed, or so she’d thought. It occurs to her she has never really imagined herself to be immortal, but had _felt_ invincible in his presence. Right now though, in this moment, she feels quite fallible, and so very afraid.

She sickeningly wonders just exactly how much of his mother he sees in her. The emotional detachment she’d resented in Teena now feels eerily familiar, as does Mulder’s tenderness and devotion he always shown towards her despite it, maybe even because of it. Had she trained him so well? An irrational, accusatory rage boils over towards the woman in the photograph. She knows that no matter the similarities, she would never, ever abandon him the way his own mother has time and time again. She could go mad, screaming into the void for him and all of his life’s injustices. It is a mere fraction of what he is feeling now, though, and one of them must remain steady. She closes the album smartly, careful to place it exactly as it was, as if he would mind her snooping.

“Hey.” She flinches and is met with a pair of dopey eyes. Even as he blinks sleepily, she can see the remorse for his earlier lachrymas. He swallows and looks away.

“I always thought…” He begins, and pauses to choose his words carefully, “I thought if I could fix it, she would come back.”

It isn’t Samantha he’s referring to. So much of who he is could be written off as classic childhood trauma resulting from a divorce. The misplaced blame, poor coping mechanisms, his proclivity towards co-dependency. It is all so infuriatingly normal and commonplace. She reaches over and clasps his hand in solidarity, saying nothing, not needing to.

He sits up and rubs a hand over his eyes. “I’m gonna put some coffee on. You want some coffee?” She hears his knees crack as he stands.

“Mulder I’m not sure caffeine is the best idea right now considering….” He pauses beside the dining room table, his back still to her, shoulders slumped, thrumming the table top lightly with an index finger, “you know what, yes. I’d love some.” He nods at the floor and continues shuffling out of sight into the kitchen.

Outside it is the kind of obsidian, nebulous night that is absent even of stars, the truest dark before the dawn. She prays for it now, the dawn. She thinks of their kiss at New Years, the promise it held. How what they wanted both from and for each other felt so close at hand and yet unreachable still. Something about this now feels necessary towards that cause. A battle must often be lost for wars to be won.

Mulder should have long since been back with the coffee.

She finds him still crouched in front of the refrigerator, her creamer in hand, crying in earnest. The cheap appliance bulb casts a harsh spotlight over him in the darkness of the kitchen, and from the doorway he looks so very alone. She swears that she can physically feel her heart beginning to crack and divide under the pressure. She crouches down beside him and gently draws the bottle from his hand, settling them both down on the cold, gritty linoleum. Again he begins to curl away from her, and again she draws his torso into her lap. “It’s alright,” she soothes. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Grief comes in waves, this she knows. (She remembers someone once told her she had her father’s sea legs.)

It was like this after Ahab, after Melissa. Applying and then reapplying tear tracked foundation, sobbing around a minty toothbrush, a mouthful of cereal. Mourning is inconvenient; it sabotages the mundane.

He is not easily comforted this time and continues to cry, he feels cold to the touch now, as opposed to the feverishness of earlier. She’s desperate to fill the bone-deep emptiness of him. Replenish the life force she can feel pooling around them, draining from him like blood. She is a healer, and yet she cannot mend him. The light flickers and then dies. They are left, as they always seem to be, clinging to each other in the darkness.

At some point they make their way to his bedroom and she tucks him in like a weary child. He is double-breathed and weak from exertion, and her maternal instincts are firing on all cylinders. She just wants him warm and safe right now. The demons have had their play; the rest can wait until tomorrow. Allowing him some dignity, she lays behind him fully clothed and above the comforter, wrapping him up from behind in a firm embrace. She takes care that her own breathing is deep and even, encouraging him to do the same. It isn’t long before he succumbs. She finds his heartbeat a comfort, as is his maleness and warmth and scent and the heft and breadth of him next to her. She clings to him like wreckage.

Dawn pierces the obscurity of night, there is a knock at the door.

end


End file.
